


From the Deep

by PurpleMoon3



Series: Bite Sized Bits of Fic [15]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: "The Game" is actually the worlds longest round of telephone, But No Movies, Gen, Of the Clan MacLeod, Slight DF cross?, after the series, fish men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 16:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13391280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMoon3/pseuds/PurpleMoon3
Summary: Duncan wakes up in the night and declares war on creatures that walked right out of his childhood bedtime stories.





	From the Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for [ author's choice, author's choice, The Other Side of Truth (Beverley Naidoo)](https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/879212.html?thread=106240876#t106240876)

He's sleeping on the deck of the barge when it hits. The fog rolls in with a sort of full body pressure so similar and yet unlike the screaming awareness that blares in his mind at the presence of his own kind. Duncan's eyes open and he rolls smoothly off the reclining deck chair, crouched low, hands searching for the hilt of a sword that is not there. Carefully, quietly, thankful for the way the lapping waters of the Seine drown out the way wooden boards creak with his weight, Duncan inches his way to the side of the boat.  
  
There are _things_ in the water, coming up, hulking monsters that move like obscene dancers when submerged but become akin to lumbering pack mules on land. The few, scattered streetlamps reflect sickly corpse-like skin and strange, coral growths. Bulging eyes. They take the obscuring mist with them, and the pressure that was a warning fades, and Duncan lets out a breath along with a thought of impossibility. He blinks, rubs his eyes, but the trail of water remains.  
  
His fist clenches on naught but air, and that is the truth of it. The reminder.   
  
_Four centuries,_ Duncan hears Rebecca's voice, ghostly yet clear as her quickening second hand though it was. He sees Richie's face, stubborn and grim, looking out to the city that had become his second home. _You yet see with mortal eyes, dear Duncan, when all of eternity waits to be discovered._  
  
He does not have his katana with him, given up in grief, but he is a warrior nonetheless and there are a plethora of weapons in the barge. Four centuries of life, and he had never seen a _na fir ghorma_ before - and more besides, this was _France_. Even a decade ago he would have said they didn't exist, invented as a way for superstitious men to pass the time.  
  
Little more than decade ago he would have said the same of demons, despite _knowing_ that no Immortal would fight on holy ground. Any holy ground.  
  
He is a warrior: no Immortal can escape that truth as the Game hones their skills.  
  
Maybe, Duncan thinks as he slides an old cavalry saber under his coat, this is why.

**Author's Note:**

> I think it would be a little sad and hilarious if between all the millennia, languages, and outright jerk immortals out there "There can only be one" was originally meant to refer to respective racial species, and the prize is survival. Immortals are the shepards of humanity, and now they got to fight the fish-men to protect their flock.


End file.
